Comics, Art, Sketches, News, and Reviews of Awesomeness

Featured Artist Friday: Lea Faske

Today’s Feature is on a lovely artist I first met at Swarm Con, Lea Faske. She’s currently a student at the Savannah College of Art and Design, and she’s made quite a few comics already, including a short comic for the anthology Game Boss: The Final Form.

I got to ask her a few questions about her art and inspirations, and the answers are highlighted below.

Your portfolio is impressive, and has concept art, comics, and illustrations. Do you prefer one outlet over another? Does your work in one area, like illustration, influence you in another area, like comics? Or do you keep the practices separate?

It’s hard for me to distinguish which outlet I enjoy best, since they all satisfy different creative needs. I guess one way of putting it is I tend to look at all of them as separate components to a larger idea. Usually, in my personal work, every piece is linked to a story. The concept art establishes a firm look for the idea, then the illustrations pull out the emotions, and then the comics tell the full story. It’s like they go hand in hand. (I guess that answers if one area influences another, haha.) In all, the story is the priority, so comics might have an upper hand on the other outlets, even though I’ve only ever started making comics within the past two years.

I saw on your website you draw inspiration from fantasy. Do you find over time that you are still inspired by the genre? Has your enthusiasm for it grown, lessened, or stayed the same? Are you also inspired by other genres? How?

Fantasy is such a broad term. I would say that I’ve always been a little disenchanted with high-fantasy (dragons, medieval settings, fairies, elves, wizards, etc.); on the other hand, original fantasy, with new worlds and rules that don’t apply in real life, is where I find my niche. Nothing inspires me more than a concept that twists the rules in a way I’ve never considered before (slyly winks at Neil Gaiman’s Ocean at the End of the Lane). Final Fantasy, for instance, has its own unique voice in the genre. That’s the kind of fantasy I draw inspiration from: new, unique ideas. Usually, though, when I apply fantasy to my own work, it leans more towards low-fantasy. Aside from that, I can find myself inspired by any genre, as long as the storytelling is strong.

I also saw on your Tumblr that you’re planning a new webcomic. Is this true? What can you tell us about it?

Yes! I am planning a new webcomic. The script is already written, but I’ve recently had a few ideas, so I’ll need to revise a little before I just throw the pages to the internet wolves. It has a set ending, so if everything goes as planned, I’m looking at anywhere between 1-2 years of updates before ultimately collecting the pages into a novel.
As far as what I can tell you without spoilers, the story is called “Neauva.” It starts at the end of the universe, where the mind/soul of a 13-year-old girl clings to her last physical atom and tries everything she can to escape the black hole that seeks to devour her.